Tax Resistance Critics Can Sometimes Help Resisters Them Best

Sometimes tax resisters can learn their creed best from the criticisms of
those who oppose them.

At many stages, it’s been difficult to determine who have been the innovators
of tax resistance — its proponents, or those critics whose
reductio ad absurdum arguments have been eventually embraced
by their opponents.

In the case of American pacifists, it went something like this:

Christians note that Jesus taught that we should turn the other cheek and love
our enemies, and determined that this meant we should not participate in
murder or war. Then some wiseacre pointed out that there’s no moral difference
really between going to war and hiring a substitute to go for you.

So they decided to stop hiring substitutes. Then some wiseacre pointed out
that there’s no moral difference really between hiring a substitute and paying
a bounty or fine to the army in lieu of enlisting.

So they stopped paying their bounties and fines. Then some wiseacre pointed
out that there’s no moral difference really between paying a bounty or fine
and paying war taxes to a government that’s making war.

So they stopped paying their war taxes. Then some wiseacre pointed out that
there’s not much difference, really, between “war” taxes and any other taxes
that the warring government inhales.

So they stopped paying all their taxes.

But who is this wiseacre? Half of the time it’s some visionary from
within the ranks, but the other half of the time it’s a critic who points out
the logical conclusions of the crazy creed and thus either proves it
ridiculous, or, madly, extends it and stakes out new turf for it.

This is the case for Edward Swaine’s careful and deliberate argument in
Law and Conscience
(1844). He attempts to disprove the argument for
conscientious tax resistance by proving it to be an argument for anarchism,
but I can’t help but feel that the force of his argument was more likely to
turn conscientious tax resisters into anarchists than to turn them into
compliant tax payers.

Ⅰ. The Law is to go right on, never swerving from its course. In its progress
it may find conscience in its way. It is not however to be turned aside, but
must overbear the conscience, or what is its value? It may find a conscience
at every step; and if, for every conscience, it is to step aside, it ceases
to be a law. Considered simply as law, it is right in overbearing all who
resist it.

Ⅱ. As law is to go right on, permitting nothing to hinder it, so conscience
is to stand fast, permitting nothing to remove it. When law comes, it must
dare the shock and abide the issue. It is not to yield, however it may be
compelled and overborne. If conscience act otherwise, it ceases to be
conscience. Considered simply as conscience, it is right in refusing
concession to anything that would command it.

But now two things are to be considered.

1st. One in relation to law — is the law a right
law? If not, the fault of the collision between law and conscience may be in
the law.

2nd. One in relation to conscience — is it rightly
informed? If not, the fault of the collision is with the conscience. To teach
legislators, the writer does not presume: — to suggest safe guidance for
subjects who wish to learn and do what is right, is the particular object of
the following pages. The object of a legislator should be to assure himself
that his law will offend no rightly informed conscience; for if it do so
offend, it must of necessity be a bad law. The desire of a good subject will
be to know for a certainty when conscience must be in error if opposed to the
law.

To quote from himself almost verbatim, in a former work… “The question of
church taxes is one of temporary moment. So much is said about them, because
a principle is involved of wider bearing. The question concerning them is,
the question of what is Cæsar’s and what God’s; the question of conscience;
the question of the legislator’s province and the subject’s duty, and the
answer to which is independent of the supposed wisdom or folly of the
legislator in his duty. It is a question that lies at the basis of civil
government, and therefore possessing the interest that belongs to what is
permanent; to what is immutable; to what will be true, and of practical
consequence, so long as man is man.”

“The Eclectic Review” is the first in rank amongst the various periodicals of
the English Protestant Dissenters. Its high standing is deserved; and
although the present writer is about to remark on what he conceives to be
pernicious doctrine offered in its pages, he is happy to subscribe to the
opinion extensively, but not sufficiently entertained of its strong claims,
in general, to public support. He has always endeavoured to promote its
circulation, not only on the ground of its literary value, but as an able and
unswerving exponent of liberal politics in the fullest Christian sense of the
phrase. But because of its high and well-deserved repute, he takes the deeper
interest in the views it propounds, and is the more jealous of what he
supposes to be its mistakes. In proportion, as it is regarded as an oracle,
it is important that those for whom it more particularly speaks should watch
lest it inadvertently betray their cause. In the article “Sir Robert Peel,”
December 1843, the Reviewer thus quotes from
a parliamentary speech of Sir Robert, on the case of John Thorogood,
July 24, 1843:—

If a demand be made in pursuance of the laws of the land, and there is a
refusal to pay that demand, it will be impossible to determine whether that
refusal arises from conscientious feeling or from contumacy; whilst the law
remains the same, authorizing the imposition, I see no alternative but to
obey the law; and if parties refuse that obedience, they must take the
consequence, otherwise there will be a dissolution of society.

On this the Eclectic says —

If the doctrine of Sir R. Peel is deserving of even a transient thought, the
inspired Apostles were wrong; they were guilty of a seditious violation of
the law, and set the example of impious insubordination to all their
successors in the Christian faith. We may say, without irreverence, that the
position of the inspired Apostles was precisely similar to that of
conscientious Dissenters of the present day. The pagan forms of hostility to
the Christian religion stood in their way: — before us stands a system of
spurious Christianity. The question is now what it was then, — will you
support by your contribution, your subscription, or any form of adhesion,
what you regard as directly opposed to the revealed will of God? Sir Robert
Peel says, at all hazards obey the law of the land; we say, “whether it
is right to obey God or men, judge ye.”

It is submitted that the Reviewer misrepresents here, (of course
unintentionally), in two ways. The position of the Apostles and that of
Dissenters, it is submitted, are not parallel — and Sir Robert Peel,
it is submitted, does not say “obey the law of the land at all hazards.” He
merely says there is no “alternative” against “the consequence” but “to
obey” — that is, he says what any consistent ruler would say of any law of
his land, good or bad, whether to impale or burn Protestant recusants, or
against housebreaking. He affirms nothing beyond the undeniable truth, that
laws must be maintained or the ruler is condemned. Further, Sir Robert spoke
in relation to “demand.” This does not affect the question of the soundness
or the fallacy of his doctrine, that there is no alternative in relation to
law but obedience or penalty. But it greatly affects the question of
parallelism between the position of the Apostles and the Dissenters. If the
Apostles had obeyed the rulers’ command not to preach, they would have
disobeyed Christ’s command to preach. But, when Dissenters pay Church-rates,
(being legally demanded of them,) where is the divine command not to pay
them, although, as Dissenters think, the ruler violates the law of Christ in
imposing them? To prove the alleged parallel it must be shewn that payment of
a legal tax for a known bad object is the same thing, morally, as doing the
deed, to accomplish which the tax is levied. But it is impossible to shew
this, except by shewing that we must pay no tax for any object that we think
a bad one; for whatever is unwise or wicked, though in the least
degree, is against the will of God. Further, must it not be proved also that
we must obey no law, (corn laws, game laws, turnpike laws, property laws,
police laws,) by obeying which we imagine we may promote evil, and
that we must, in fact, do nothing by which we think any one will be more
potent for evil? Accordingly, even if, then, we should pay our debts when the
money is likely to be mis-spent, every tax must be refused by every one who
does not approve of all that government intends to do with it — no law need
be obeyed, and nothing must be bought or sold when the law, or the money, or
the article will in our opinion be in danger of ministering in any way to
evil. Here, truly, is “a dissolution of the bonds of society!” Yet the
Reviewer has no escape, as is believed, from this dilemma, and from a more
startling consequence, to be noticed by and by, except in giving up his
parallel and his argument. The Apostles were under obligation to
preach, by the command of God to do so. Dissenters are under no obligation
to refuse payment of a wicked tax, for God has not commanded them to
do so, either expressly or by implication that has yet been shewn. Dissenters
therefore should pay legal church rates if they would act by the New
Testament, and by the inevitable comment of immutable reason on the
oft-quoted dictate, “Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, and unto
God the things that are God’s.” What is or can that comment be, but that “the
things of God are those which He (not his creatures for him) claims to be so,
whatever they are, secular or sacred, and that the things which are Cæsar’s,
‘are those which he claims, so far as they may be rendered without disobeying
God as having commanded us not to render them? What is any looser or
wider comment than this, but a license to anarchy — a license to weak or
wicked men to set aside government, ‘the ordinance’ of God? If Cæsar say
‘Give me money,’ we must give it; for God has nowhere said ‘Do not give Cæsar
money,’ or ‘Do not give Cæsar money without satisfaction that he will
properly apply it.’ If Cæsar say ‘Do not preach,’ Paul must refuse obedience,
for Christ has said to him ‘preach!’ If Cæsar say to us, ‘Go to the North
Pole’ — or ‘wear a cocked hat’ — we must do so; for God has not claimed our
obedience to the contrary. He has not said, ‘Do not go to the North
Pole’ or ‘go only where you please.’ He has not said, ‘Do not wear a
cocked hat,’ or ‘wear only what you like,’ Those things, then, concerning
which God has claimed nothing of us, we must render unto Cæsar. God says to
us in effect in that notable but much-abused rule — ‘Caesar may be foolish or
wicked, but what I have not said is mine is his;’ and if you think he
regulates what is his unwisely or unjustly, enlighten him, if you can, or
entreat him and procure a change of law, if you are able to do so
consistently with the obedience which I claim. But, foolish or wicked as his
law may be, you must obey him in every thing where some contrary law of mine
for your conduct (not his) does not forbid. If he should say to you,
therefore, ‘I resolve to establish the worship of Baal for the good of the
Empire,’ and to levy a tax for that purpose, the resources of the State are
his, and you are bound to render the tax. But, if he should say I
hold it to be for the good of the land, that every one acknowledge Baal to be
God, and therefore require the payment of the tax to be accompanied by a
recognition by the payers of the godhead of Baal, you are bound, while you
pay the tax, to refuse the recognition, though impaling or burning be the
penalty. Or, if the tax be collected under an enactment that every one who
pays shall be considered as offering to Baal, you are bound to refuse the
payment, for to pay in such case would be equivalent to worship, and a
rendering to Cæsar of that which is God’s. But I do not justify your refusal
of taxes, because they may be levied for a purpose that my law condemns.
He who violates my law must answer, and that is not you who pay the
tax, but he who levies it if a bad one. It is he who misapplies the National
Funds, not you who had no rightful command over them to apply or misapply.”

If this is not a just comment upon the text in question, it seems inevitable
that “the powers that be” would be no “powers” at all, and government would
have no certain “sinews” for the discharge of its essential duties. What
national property the legislature devotes to national objects, it stands
possessed of by the act of legislation which so devotes; and when the
tax-gatherer comes for it, he comes, not for a contribution, or subscription,
or aid, but for property no longer the subject’s to give or to withhold, and
no longer under his rightful control to do with otherwise than as the law
directs. To deny this, it is respectfully submitted, is to justify the despot
in enacting any law, and to furnish the anarchist with a pretense for
resisting all law. To set up our private judgment so as to neutralize the act
of the ruler in his function as steward of the national funds, is the same
offence against truth and liberty which he himself commits when he employs
those funds for the enforcement of his own private views of moral duty or
religious obligation. In both cases, private judgment of fitness or propriety
is made the standard for public law. When this is done by the few it is
despotism; when done by the many it is anarchy. In both cases it is tyranny,
and in either is the affirmation of the principle of Church Establishments — the right of man to bond public laws to the fashion of his own particular
creed, without respect to the mind of others.

The Eclectic is, consequently (unwittingly) the advocate of Church
Establishments, by the argument which it opposes to them. The error lies in
the ‘doctrine of the right of private judgment. Every man has an indefeasible
right of private judgment, but he has not the right to exercise it
contradictorily, to exercise it in any relation he may sustain, so as to
annul any other relation he may sustain, or any relation that others may
sustain. He has no such right of private judgment on the fitness of a tax as
a taxee, as belongs to him as a taxer — a legislator; and he may not plead
the right of private judgment on the fitness of a given tax that belongs to
him as a man simply, to annul his necessary exclusion from the right to judge
of its fitness as a man who is a taxee. As a person legally taxed, he has no
right of private judgment on the subject other than a man has on the subject
of paying his just debts. If he decide that he is at liberty not to pay,
however conscientious his decision, he is under mistake, and must have
rogue’s fare. The right of judgment here belongs solely to the legislature,
or a legislature would be a nonentity. It is only apart from this public
relation of taxee, and without annulling it, that he is at liberty to
exercise his indefeasible right as a man simply to judge of the moral
rightness of the tax, and to use his influence as such for its support or
repeal. There are only things immoral and things illegal. There is no
tertium quid — no third thing — nothing, which beside or
distinct from the immoral and the illegal, is “extra-magisterial,” as some
have said. If the legislature, the constituted stewards of the national
funds, determine that a certain application of those funds is desirable for
the public good, and we refuse then to grant those funds, because we do not
like the object, we commit the same wrong in thus interfering with what is
solely their duty to determine, as they commit when they interfere with what
is solely a man’s own private duty to determine. Their conduct
says, “Paul shall not have the same liberty of judgment that we take.”
Our conduct says the same, for it would justify the refusal by
bigots, of a police tax levied for Paul’s protection. They say — “a
fig for other people’s notions of duty! Away with the doctrine that all
should be consulted! We will impose our own — our own shall be law — our’s
are the right, and those only will we suffer.” We say — what do we
say, if not exactly the same? Is it not true, that the Eclectic, in
its zeal, has fought against its friends?

Taxes for bad objects are to be paid, not because we can be excused for
helping evil by any voluntary act, that we are morally free to forbear, nor
because the payment of such taxes will not help evil, for it will
help evil, just as much as the payment of a debt to one who is going to
misapply the money will help the evil, — but because the tax is not the
subject’s any more than the debt is the debtor’s to help with or to withhold.
The payment therefore is his duty, for he is not morally free to decline it,
although it will help evil. It may seem to some, if not to the
Reviewer himself for a moment, an argumenturn ad hominem
retort to the position just taken, that no one may so plead his right or
relation as to nullify another’s right or relation — that the position
refutes itself, for that the refusal to pay a tax for a bad object, or for
the imposition upon the people of the ruler’s private judgment, is only an
assertion of this very doctrine. But only a little discrimination will
suffice to show the feebleness of such retort. If the ruler enacts a bad law,
he necessarily invades some right. This is precisely what we say in blame of
any legislature that institutes or maintains a system of religion; and so
far as he would nullify any indefeasible right or relation that we have
or sustain, we say refuse obedience. All that we deny is, that the lawful
ruler is to be refused obedience to such bad laws as do not nullify
our indefeasible rights or relations; as, for instance, our right to judge of
our own moral duty, and our relation to God as morally accountable to Him
only. When he bids us do a bad thing, to do his bidding would be to give up
our right of private judgment on moral duty; and when he bids us recognize
anything as truth, however true, not leaving us wholly free to withhold such
recognition, his bidding goes to annul our relation as accountable for our
judgment on truth and duty only to God. Then his command is to be set at
nought. But when he, the legal steward of the national funds, merely calls
upon us to pay a tax for any object he judges it to be his duty as ruler to
prosecute, he touches no right or relation at all: — we have no right
paramount like his in the property, and he has asked no obedience that our
relation as accountable to God forbids. To illustrate: — If an individual is
constituted legal controller of his and my joint property for our joint
benefit, I may not plead the folly or wickedness of his act in applying the
property to some foolish or immoral purpose as an excuse for not yielding the
portion of it in my hands, and required for the given end. If I do, I nullify
his relation as legal controller of our joint property, and might so nullify
it if he were to exercise a sound judgment instead of a bad one. If he set up
a molten calf, and pay a priest to do it homage with our joint property, with
a view of bringing blessings on us both, his folly is sad; but it is his
legal right to apply the money as his judgment, not mine, may
dictate to be best. In the appropriation he annuls no relation of mine, and
precludes no right of mine. Whatever his act may imply, I maintain my
religious relation and civil right in the matter of worship; and, as to the
property, I had no relation or right at all which he has touched; the sole
right of application, be he fool or wise, is his. The same principles apply
to civil rulers and their subjects. The right of private judgment cannot be
annulled; the right of property may be; and, being annulled, of course there
is no rightful control over it by the person whose right has been annulled.
Wherever there is civil government the right of property exists only so far
as the law allows. This cannot be denied without assenting to a principle
tending to “the dissolution of society.”

But further — the Reviewer states, that “to plead in excuse, that we are bound
to obey existing laws involves the co-operation of those who hold that we are
so in a legal effort to extirpate Christianity itself from the
world,” and “that those who protest against the principles held by the
Established Church as errors, but still contribute to their propagation,
because that course is prescribed by law, and excuse themselves under the plea
that, while they are bound to obey the law as it exists, they are doing their
best to secure its repeal, incur a practical absurdity. They allow the
legislature to fix them in this dilemma — ‘you cannot pretend that your
conscience forbids you thus to support the hierarchy, because, in defiance of
such scruples, you do so every day; while, on the other hand, your objection,
if only of a political nature, we must treat as we should a peculiar antipathy
to assessed taxes, on an irresistible passion for smuggling.’ It appears to us
most evident, that the only ground on which Dissenters can consistently oppose
ecclesiastical imposts is the ground of conscience.”

Thus saith the Eclectic; but pray who said “we are bound to obey existing
laws?” Who made so loose a declaration? “We are bound to obey existing laws
which God does not require us to disobey,” is all that ever was said on the
subject, that the writer knows of. All that is denied is, that we are bound to
disobey every law which rulers do wrong to enact. But we pass on to the
“dilemma;” and here, surely, Dissenters might very fairly reply with a
“dilemma” for Sir Robert. They might say, “So, Sir Robert, you really think,
because we pay the income-tax, that we like it; that, because we pay the
protecting dues and do not smuggle, we approve them, and are enamoured of the
corn-laws, and other commercial restrictions; that, because we pay assessed
taxes, we exceedingly enjoy your government, and delight in the Irish Church
Establishment, which we profess to believe tends to the extirpation of
Christianity from Ireland, and are in love with your Irish coercion and other
policy; for, if you do not think that we like all these things, and should
have no conscientious objection to pursue your course if we had but
your power, what right have you to infer that our conscience does not forbid
us to support the hierarchy, just simply because we pay you the tax which you
levy in order that you may support it? We no more support the
hierarchy by paying the collector of the tax, which you apply for its
maintenance, than we support the other measures referred to, against which we
protest.” How will the Reviewer get Sir Robert to reply? Had not Sir Robert
better withdraw? The reasoning which the Reviewer puts into the Premier’s
mouth — reasoning which Sir Robert is too keen to offer — is tainted with a
sentiment too common in the Church and State argument — common with both the
parties to it, and adverse to that first principle of sound moral philosophy
that we are bound in all things, great or small, of earth or Heaven,
by the will of God, (as far as we know, or think we know, it) as being to
creatures the necessary and only ultimate Rule of Truth. I allude to the
sentiment, that a man’s course in regard to anything can be
“only political or economical,” and can ever be properly pursued
independently of his conscience — let the thing be the payment of a
turnpike toll, or the worship of God. It is this error which has produced the
canting cry of “political Dissenters ” in application to those Dissenters who
oppose the political compact of Church and State alliance, although it cannot
be known or fairly surmised that they do not conscientiously oppose
it on the grounds they take, whatever they may be, and however
technically described as political or religious. And it is this error which
engenders bitterness in Dissenters against Churchmen, although, for aught than
can be known or candidly conjectured, they conscientiously sustain
it. If an upright man opposes a corn-law, he does so conscientiously, although
his objection is here what would be called political; and if he
opposes the legislative connexion between Church and State, he does no
more, although his objection here may be in the strict and popular sense
religious. A Christian who forgets that he is a citizen, and forbears to
interest himself in his country’s secularities of any kind because
they are secularities, and this only, is a bigot, and as self-condemning as he
is bigoted. He has not imbibed the spirit of the Apostles, who stood upon a
citizen’s rights, and who taught, not that Christian men should come out from
the world’s secularities, but from its sins; not that they should have no
company with the men of this world, for then must they needs go out of it,
but that, buying or selling, ruling or serving, teaching or learning, eating
or drinking, they should regard the glory of God, deferring in all things to
His authority, so that, as instructed by this rule, they may “provide things
honest in the sight of all men.” No objection of a good and wise man
to any law whatever can be “only political or economical” in any sense that
excludes the moral. Being politically or economically wrong, he is as morally
bound to oppose it as a conscientious man as he is morally bound to refuse
worship to false Gods, or to worship the true God.

Dissenters should not be anxious to clear themselves from the charge of
being political. Let us only state the matter properly. We have no political
warfare let us say, against the Church of England, the church which is
established, but only with its maintenance by force of law. We have no
contest with its many pious and honored members about its ecclesiastical
arrangements, its hierarchy, its doctrines, its liturgy, its rubric, except
that contest which they are fully justified in our opinion (with their views)
in waging with us, and which, indeed, every sect is bound in consistency to
wage with every other sect more or less — the contest of argument
without force of law. But as to its political establishment, let us
frankly own we are bent upon its discontinuance, conscientiously
objecting to the political establishment of any sect; and can never be
satisfied until by force of law it is dis-established, and the principle of a
political church establishment be effaced for ever from the public statutes.

It is of the greatest importance that Dissenters avoid bad reasoning, and
keep clear of untenable ground in their contest against the political
institution — a State Church. If the Reviewer’s doctrine were to be
extensively followed by Dissenters, a far greater injury would be inflicted
on political truth than any result in favor of Dissenters could compensate.
They would set an example justifying anarchy, and supplying all seditionists
thereafter with an apology for “confusion and every evil work.” Their dissent
would be in danger of becoming identified with fanaticism, and its principle
with the principle that the inward light is a safer guide than the written
law of God. They would be the derision and the torment of all practical
statesmen of whatever shade of politics, in proportion to the prevalence of
their refusal, and moral philosophy (on the assumed dictates of which their
refusal would proceed) would be set wrong in that degree. It is of the first
importance, that the Reviewer’s doctrine on this subject be rejected as most
injurious to the course and credit of the voluntary principle — a principle
which the Eclectic sincerely enforces, and, generally, most ably sustains,
but of which it will be unfortunate, in the present writer’s opinion, for the
cause of truth, if it do not cease to be the ill-advising advocate which the
article that has occasioned these remarks, he thinks, exhibits.

But some will say, “It is of no use telling us we must pay
Church-rates. The ‘must’ is only in our will. If all Dissenters resolve not
pay them, government will be compelled to give up the contest, and otherwise
provide for church expenses.” It is never wise to do what is not right; but,
apart from the question — is it right so to resolve? — the policy
for Dissenting interests of such a resolve is more than doubtful. There was a
period when church expenses and the poor were provided for out of funds
entirely or almost entirely under church control, and under that system was
it that the worst corruptions in Church and State prevailed, and grew from
generation to generation. It was only as another element, (the popular) was
introduced, that priestly arrogance was checked, and the poor were withdrawn
in measure from their wretched dependence upon the Church — a dependence that
made them the uninquiring victims of its superstitions, and the tools of its
bigotry, avarice and ambition. It may be questioned therefore whether it is
desirable that those opportunities that now occur for discussing the claims
of the Church, and limiting its resources to its legal wants should be
willingly, resigned. These opportunities have tended greatly, if not chiefly,
to diffuse the light now shed upon “church principles” which promises, if
taken due advantage of, to be their most effectual check. But, be the aspect
of a right course what it may, it is deeply to be lamented if any among us
are unconvinced that what is not right cannot be wise. If we do not
know that those parishes where Church-rates have ceased, have lost or harmed
nothing either in the minds of the parishioners or in those of others — nothing for the cause now, nothing for the cause in future — by the
wrong-doing mingled with their right, it is not the less certain that Truth,
in the long run, is better served by strict adherence to sound principle in
all things than it can be by the proudest triumph gained by deviation from it
in anything. The wrath of man may be made to praise God; but God had been in
all cases more honored and His cause more advanced without it.

In writing thus, the writer has virtually condemned the conduct of the
“Friends” or Quakers. He meant to do so. He believes that their long
sustained protest against Church Establishments in the form of pecuniary
“sufferings” has been of no service to religious liberty. He sincerely
respects the motives that have actuated that estimable body of Christians. No
doubt they have shewn a laudable conscientiousness in suffering the spoiling
of their goods in denial of Cæsar’s authority in Christ’s kingdom; and, so
far, their testimony has served Truth — but this testimony they would have
borne had they conscientiously stabbed Cæsar to the heart in like denial. As
designing Rome’s deliverance from tyranny, and as a witness for just
principle, even in his act of blood, Brutus is commendable. But the foul deed
itself was a foul deed still. Had the “sufferings” of the Friends been
forborne and the amount expended in efforts to awaken and enlighten the
public on the subject of their testimony, the Truth would have been no less
honored by a righteous testimony; needless sufferings, more annoying to the
sufferers than the mulct, escaped; a political error and a bad political
example, through a lengthened period, would have been avoided, and the
questions between Churchmen and Dissenters nearer (as the writer unfeignedly
believes) to a right conclusion than they now are. Passive resistance is as
much disobedience as open force; and, where it is not called for by moral
obligation, as really tends to social injury. If reform may arise from
passive resistance, so it may from revolution. But if reform has ever risen
from revolution, the blood and the flame have not advanced it. They may have
failed to suppress it, but their tendency was to do so. The bark of freedom
may have ridden out the storm, but its present and future safety is so much
the less as the tempest has strained its timbers, or created shoals to bar
its progress. Law cannot be disobeyed at any time with social
benefit, except when to disobey is the law of the Supreme.

See Ireland. Whatever opinion may be entertained of the Repeal movement,
there is one feature in its aspect that must strike every one capable of
understanding what is morally sublime. Say the Irish are mistaken — yet, conceding that they believe themselves to be oppressed, is it not grand
to see them standing erect and bold in conscious homage of the law that
wrongs them? They condemn it, but obey it. They front the legislature with
open breast, challenging its search for secret treachery, and asking with
one accord for all they mean. Suppose that people crouching, cringing, yet
conjectured to be secretly conspiring, or banded in avowal that, if law will
not bow, its majesty shall be contemned. — Would they then engage the
sympathy that now attends them, right or wrong? Would those who now favor
them be undivided as at present? Let the Irish break the law, and their
moral power is gone. Now their attitude constrains respect, and we ask, what
is it that they want? They ask for justice, and they do not wrong it by
insult, or resistance of its ministers; and so attention is arrested and
their ranks are swelled. Let them break the law and thousands would eschew
them who now feel safe in their connexion. Our case is similar. Let
us keep the law and we are potent; let us break it, and we are weak.
Obedient to its dictates, the public will listen when we respectfully affirm
that, notwithstanding our obedience, in our judgment, it violates reason and
tramples upon justice, and ought to be revoked. Let our reclamation assume
no form that is unchristian or suspicious, and the voice of reason and
justice will prevail in proportion to the energy and union that mark its
utterance. Let it be otherwise and our union will be our disgrace, our
energy, our loss.

“Rightly to be great,
Is not to stir without great argument.”

While urging the impolicy of refusing to pay church taxes, there is one
other consideration which the writer would suggest. There is no position of
public affairs more favorable for the speedy removal of a great legislative
evil than that when the people are writhing under some attendant minor
burdens or vexation constantly tormenting, and found to be inseparable from
it. It is then that they are better prepared than under other circumstances,
to unite for its overthrow; for it is then that they are scourged to thought,
and stimulated to inquire, examining the foe from head to foot, and
challenging his claims to further tolerance, if, maybe, they can destroy
him. Take an instance. It is rumoured that the government intends to salary
the Irish Roman Catholic priests. Of course public funds must be charged
with the expense. Is there a Protestant Dissenter in the land that does not
quiver with emotion strong as life, or strong as death, at the very thought?
Is there one that doubts that such a measure would arouse an opposition, of
which the stir on the late Factories’ Education Bill was a mere sign
rather than a specimen? Is he not persuaded from the tellings of his own
inner soul, that such a measure would be the knell of Church Establishments
throughout the British Empire? But why does he feel himself thus knitting
with inexpressible and all-promising energy? Because he has awoke!
He sees that the question between Churchmen and Dissenters is one of life or
death for liberty and truth, and that they must yield or the
principle of a State Church be blotted from the laws. The monstrous
progeny has revealed the parent, and he sees, at length, that nothing can
shut its prolific womb but death. And now the purpose is matured
within him that, God helping, if it be not blotted out, it shall
not be for want of his life and strength devoted to that end. To obtain
relief from the less we must destroy the greater. To be secure from the
teasing irruptions of the streams, we must dry the spring, viz. — the
legislative bond between Church and State. This, in the opinion of the
writer, is the kind of feeling which it is the true policy of Dissenters to
promote. The issue is so certain in the case of Irish legislation just
supposed, that if it were not that folly and wickedness in legislators, as
in others, are always to be lamented, Protestant Dissenters might exult in
the perpetration of a legislative contradiction so treacherous to all sound
principle.

Let the political and religious wrong, involved in the existence of
the Church Establishment as a bad political institution, an unjust
assumption of man over his fellow, and an assumption of divine authority, be
urged with all the power that righteous indignation can command. Let the
petty grievance to Dissenters, of the legal and moral obligation to pay the
taxes levied for the hierarchy, be viewed as irremoveable in justice to the
people at large, so long as the master grievance, the political establishment
itself exists; and the call and need for exertion, in order to its removal,
will appear to be the more powerful and just in the degree of its
inseparableness from the lesser torments as well as from the dread spiritual
consequences by which, as we think, every State-Church, as such, is, ever has
been, and ever must be, attended.

To conclude — the writer will fairly meet a fair question. — Does
the writer counsel slavish submission? Are taxes to be paid at the will of a
despot, the people generally disapproving of the levy? — The right end
of rulership is public freedom. The more perfectly this is secured, the
better is the right end of government attained. Laws, therefore, that
assume for the ruler any right of judgment incompatible with equal regard
for the judgment of all, are laws contrary to the end of government, for
they are laws to serve the ruler more than the people. They should respect
equally the will of all, rulers and ruled. Consequently taxes are
inequitably raised, that do not suppose the ruler and the people to be
equally entitled to judge each one for himself what is best for himself. To
disallow this involves injustice either to one party or the other, and is
either to make the rulers gods, and the people slaves, or the people rulers
and the rulers subjects. Allow it, and each party not only keeps his right
place, but only right is done. The ruler levies no tax that does not equally
regard the liberty of each, and all the people pay whatever tax he levies
without suffering any wrong. But — and now comes the point — it
is quite consistent to say that the ruler should equally respect
the will of each, and yet that his law should be obeyed, although the
subject may think it unwise or unjust. So long as the ruler, constitutional
or despot, is permitted by the people to occupy the throne he is the
“power ordained by God.” They are at liberty to depose
him (if he will not abdicate) as soon as they are in a condition to do so
without convulsing the nation and involving it in a war. If he is a
constitutional monarch, the constitution will afford them the necessary
power, without resort to violence and blood, as soon as it would be for
their benefit to use it. If he is a despot, they are under no obligation,
legal or moral, to permit his continuance in power a moment longer than may
be essential to the maintenance of public order, and the substitution of a
more approved authority. But — and this is the answer to the question — so long as he is ruler, they are bound to obey in
all matters wherein they are not forbidden so to do by the Supreme.
The writer has endeavoured to sum his doctrine on the duties both of rulers
and subjects, on all points, at all times, and everywhere, in the following
lines: —

RIGHTS.

The Lord of all bids all — submit to Me!
Hence, bound by duty, each from each is free;
Sum total this of native Rights below;
All further Rights from this, the fountain, flow.
All Rights beyond by grant or yielding came,
Nor Right beyond may prince or peasant claim,
Nor Right to govern or disturb pretend,
Oppos’d to equal law and common end.
So far as rule is right, by Heaven’s decree,
Its end and aim are equal liberty;
Yet, be it wrong, who fealty would withdraw,
Must shew excuse from God or from the law.
Where laws are bad, and subjects are opprest,
Complain aloud till wrong shall be redrest,
But, by all order, reason, word of Heaven,
Resist not, save command from God be given!
Say’st when his bidding? — the high Heavens commandWhen speaks the public, let who may withstand,
Or kings were gods, and ruling kingly play,
This only mark! — Tis not the public speaks
When sword aggressive public quiet breaks.
And nations only made for tyrants’ sway.
The public many — the dissentients few —
What army battles with a village crew?
When laws must stand, or blood of brethren fall,
Be sure ’tis yet too soon to burst the bondman’s thrall!

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